Amazon picks 5% in Shoppers Stop for ~180 cr

US online retail giant Amazon has picked up a 5 per cent stake in Shoppers Stop for ~179.26 crore, its first foray into India’s offline retail space as it looks to beat rivals Flipkart and Paytm Mall.

E-commerce is estimated to make up only 2 per cent of India’s overall retail sector, with nearly half of the sales coming from smartphones. Amazon is looking to expand its presence in the country beyond online retail. It has got a licence to operate food retail, offering customers grocery. Last week, Amazon tied up with Shoppers Stop to open experience stores at retail outlets. K Raheja Group’s Shoppers Stop retail outlets for fashion have a national presence. It also owns offline hyper mall, HyperCity, and Crossword Bookstores.

Amazon and Shoppers Stop have signed a pact that will allow the offline retailer’s 400 brands to be sold on the Jeff Bezos-promoted e-commerce marketplace. Amazon will get space to set up experience centres at Shoppers Stop outlets to promote its fashion products on its online platform.

The Shoppers Stop stock closed at ~414.65 on Friday on the BSE.

Investors have ploughed around $6 billion into Flipkart, while Amazon has so far committed to investing $5 billion in India. E-commerce is expected to become a major driver of retail in India over the next decade, targeting users from tier-II and -III cities, who do not have access to large offline retail stores.

Globally the trend of online retailers going offline has begun picking up. Amazon has acquired US-based offline retail chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in June. In China, Alibaba has opened three massive Hema supermarkets, where customers can order groceries for home delivery and even eat in.

Amazon has also opened its own bookstores in major US cities and has even piloted a self-checkout grocery store in its hometown of Seattle.

India’s largest online retailer, Flipkart, has begun experimenting with offline stores through its fashion subsidiary, Myntra. In March, Myntra opened its first store in Bengaluru to promote its largest private label brand, Roadster. Unlike previous attempts by online retailers to open offline experience centres, customers will be able to buy products directly from Myntra’s store.

While offline retailers are also trying to go online, they have faced mixed success. Earlier this week, Aditya Birla Group-owned online fashion portal Abof said it would shut operations by the end of the year. The company said doing business online was unsustainable since rivals Flipkart and Amazon were burning millions of dollars to subsidise the cost of products.

Tata, one of the country’s largest retailers, said it has seen good traction from customers on its online portal TataCLiQ. However, the company still has a long way to go to compete with Amazon, Flipkart and Paytm Mall, which together control an estimated 85 per cent of India’s online retail market.

China says small North Korean quake ‘suspected explosion’

China said a magnitude 3.4 earthquake detected in North Korea on Saturday was a “suspected explosion”, raising fears the isolated state had conducted another nuclear bomb test just weeks after its last one.

An official at South Korea’s meteorological agency said they were analysing the tremor, which they put at magnitude 3.0, but the initial view was that it was a natural quake.

“A key method is to look at the seismic waves or seismic acoustic waves and the latter can be detected in the case of a manmade earthquake,” said the official, who asked for anonymity. “In this case we saw none. So as of now, we are categorising this as a natural earthquake.”

The earthquake was detected in Kilju county in North Hamgyong Province, where North Korea’s known Punggyeri nuclear site is located, the official said.

China’s earthquake administration said in a statement on its website that the quake, which occurred around 0830 GMT, was recorded a depth of zero kilometres.

All of North Korea’s previous six nuclear tests registered as earthquakes of magnitude 4.3 or above. The last test on September 3 registered as a 6.3 magnitude quake.

A secondary tremor detected after that test could have been caused by the collapse of a tunnel at the mountainous site, experts said at the time. Satellite photos of the area after the September 3 quake showed numerous landslides apparently caused by the massive blast, which North Korea said was an advanced hydrogen bomb.

The head of the nuclear test monitoring agency CTBTO said on Saturday that analysts were “looking at unusual seismic activity of a much smaller magnitude” than the September 3 test in North Korea.

Two seismic events had been detected and it was unlikely they were manmade, CTBTO said. The activity took place around 50 km (31 miles) from previous nuclear tests, it added.

Russia’s emergency ministry says background radiation in nearby Vladivostok was within the natural range.

There was no immediate reaction from China’s Foreign Ministry, but the news was widely reported by Chinese state media outlets and on social media.

Tensions have continued to rise around the Korean peninsula since Pyongyang carried out its sixth nuclear test, prompting a new round of UN sanctions.

North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, currently in New York for a United Nations meeting, warned on Thursday that Kim could consider a hydrogen bomb test of an unprecedented scale over the Pacific.

US President Donald Trump called the North Korean leader a “madman” on Friday, a day after Kim dubbed him a “mentally deranged US dotard” who would face the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history”.

North Korea’s nuclear tests to date have all been underground, and experts say an atmospheric test, which would be the first since one by China in 1980, would be proof of the success of its weapons programme. North Korea has launched dozens of missiles this year, several of them flying over Japan, as it accelerates a weapons programme aimed at enabling it to target the United States with a nucleartipped missile.

While China has been angered by North Korea’s repeated nuclear and missile tests and has signed up for the increasingly tough UN sanctions, it has also stressed the need to resume dialogue and for all sides to take steps to reduce tensions.

In a series of meetings this week at the United Nations, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has reiterated to various foreign counterparts that apart from sanctions, the resolutions also call for dialogue to resume and that this needs to happen.

Earlier on Saturday, China said it will limit exports of refined petroleum products from October 1 and ban exports of condensates and liquefied natural gas immediately to comply with the latest UN sanctions. It will also ban imports of textiles from North Korea.

China’s trade with North Korea, meanwhile, rose in August to its highest since December 2016, data showed on Saturday, even after the UN slapped tougher sanctions on Pyongyang in a bid to choke off a third of its $3 billion in annual export revenue.

The world’s second-largest economy imported and exported goods worth $604.27 million in August, up from $456.16 million in July, according to data from China’s General Administration of Customs. While the highest number this year, August trade was down from $628.2 million in August last year, according to data on the customs website. Trade was up 7.5 per cent at $3.61 billion for the year to date.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.

The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.

The earthquake was detected in Kilju county in North Hamgyong Province, where North Korea’s known Punggyeri nuclear site is located

Girl students catch up, will soon overtake boys in India

At 300m, No. Of Students Is World’s Largest

India is about to reach an important milestone shortly. Half of its gigantic student population — the world’s largest — will be made up of girls. In 2015-16, the last year for which data is available, girls comprised 48% of the student population of about 300 million.

There has been a dramatic increase of girls enrolled in educational institutions — from schools to colleges and universities — over the past years. Starting from a mere 25% in 1950-51, the share of girl students inched up slowly for the next 40 years to reach 39% in 1990-91.

Then, in the next decade it moved up to 42%. Since 20002001, it has increased to within touching distance of the halfway mark.

Once enrolled, girls are more likely to be conscientious in their studies and complete the course. Hence more girls get degrees than boys.

Why is this significant? For one, this puts India in the company of most advanced countries. In the European Union countries, 54% of higher education students are women, in the US 55% and in China about 54%.

But in these countries the status of women in society also improved simultaneously. More participation in jobs, more representation in political, administrative and economic decision making bodies, and a better status in society went hand in hand with better education.

In India, there is a bizarre mismatch between the education attainments of women and their participation and status in all other aspects of the country’s life. Participation in work is just 27%, representation in Parliament is 11% and 8.8% in state legislatures, and only 17 CEOs of 500 largest listed companies are women.

This situation represents not just a tragic waste of educated and productive talent of the country’s citizens, but also a fraught and unjust situation where a huge educated segment of society is forced to play second fiddle and sit on the sidelines.

While the number of girls in schools steadily increased in the 1990s and early 2000s as a result of programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the mid-day meal scheme, there has been a dizzying expansion in the number of girls entering higher education. They made up about 35% of students in 2000-01which shot up to 46% in 2015-

In professional courses, boys outnumber girls by almost 3:1in engineering but they are ahead of boys in medical science disciplines, mainly due to very high numbers in some sub-disciplines like nursing, dentistry, physiotherapy and traditional systems of medicine.

The large and growing number of girls doing general arts and humanities courses in colleges across the country represents both a lack of opportunity to enter into less accessible technical and professional courses and also the desire of families to equip their daughters as much as possible for future life.

Many feel that getting a graduate degree is now part of the preparation for better marriage prospects as there is at least a better potential for employment.

India Look To Seal ODI Series Today

GOING FOR THE KILL

India Look To Seal ODI Series Today

SHARPENING THE EDGES: Captain Virat Kohli during the nets on the eve of India’s third ODI against Australia at the Holkar Stadium in Indore

Indore: Exactly 10 years ago, on Sept 24, 2007, India won the inaugural World T20 and the legend of MS Dhoni was born. A 26-year-old long-haired young man changed the face of Indian cricket. Over the years, Team India learnt the art of finishing tight games under Dhoni, who became renowned for his calmness.

That young man is now a 36-year-old veteran and seemingly, has achieved everything he could as a leader. India became No.1Test team in the World in 2009 for the first time under him. India won the 50-over World Cup in 2011 after 28 long years. Two years later, Dhoni completed his silverware with the Champions Trophy in England. He also handled the transition period quite well when a few veterans retired.

Dhoni then quietly handed over the reigns to Virat Kohli earlier this year. India are playing a different brand of cricket under a more aggressive and expressive Kohli. They have beaten an all-round England at home, reached the final of the ICC Champions Trophy and mauled West Indies and Sri Lanka at their own backyard this year. Now, India are on a verge of winning yet another series when they take on Australia in their third One-day International here at Holkar Stadium in Indore on Sunday. India already have a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.

Barring the presence of Dhoni, India have a young team. They are trying to plug afew loopholes but still look way ahead of their Aussies counterparts. Australia had an opportunity to ground the hosts twice in the previous two matches but failed, while India showed they have the men to bail them out of difficult situations.

The likes of Hardik Pandya, Yazuvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav are justifying their selections with some breathtak- ing performances. Pandya has been nothing short of a revelation, while Chahal and Kuldeep have given a pleasant headache to the team management and the selectors. The wrist spin duo has been successful so far in keeping the Australian batsmen quiet, though it will be a challenge for them to be as effective on the battingfriendly Indore track.

The batsmen, though, can look to have a good time. While Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane looked in good form in Kolkata, Rohit Sharma is yet to make his presence felt in the series, though he looks in good touch in the nets. The only problem India are facing is the No.4 slot. Manish Pandey has the backing of the team management and he is certain to get a longer rope after missing out on in the first two One-dayers.

Australia, on the other hand, have plenty of issues. Their top order hasn’t clicked so far. Aaron Finch batted in the nets and his return is a big boost to the Australian batting lineup, which is too dependent on captain Steve Smith and David Warner. Warner is yet to make a mark in this series.

How Puja khichuri and Onam sadya made it to restaurants

As festival food goes mainstream, enterprising home cooks are dishing out elaborate feasts — on their table and as takeaway

FASTING AND FEASTING: An elaborate dastarkhwan at writer Sadia Dehlvi’s home and a pujor thaala (left)

Fasting and feasting alike are known to engender culinary ingenuity – and enterprise. This Navratra, if you’ve had your fill of the likes of sumac rice risotto, kuttu crisps, singhada tortellini and no onion-no garlic Chinese that creative restaurants in Delhi and Mumbai are dishing out to keep businesses afloat during the lean nine days of “fasting”, gear up for some no-holds-barred Pujo feasts.

In a country as complex as India, it is perhaps fitting that abstention and excess should coexist. If Navratras are a period to shy away from certain culinary choices, Durga Puja sees no such dietary impositions. From aloo dum and luchi to biryani and egg rolls, pop Kolkata dishes are pandal fare during the festival that encourages social bonhomie. Like with every festival, however, more elaborate or delicate dishes than these street staples get cooked within homes. This year, enterprising home cooks are serving up feasts not just in their own kitchens but in restaurants, for takeaway and home deliveries, in a determined bid to find a larger cosmopolitan audience for their festive fare.

In fact, if your sole reason for going festive during the Pujas is food (and pandal crowds terrify you), Mumbai-based blogger and home cook Rhea Mitra Dalal of Euphorhea Kitchen has the perfect solution: A home-delivered Bengali feast with dishes such as narkel’er bora, palong shaak bhaja, jhinge poshto, bhapa chingri, ilish’er tel jhol but also vegetarian bhog specials — bhuni khichuri and labra.

If you want to check into a restaurant during the festive season, Kolkata home cook Iti Misra is showcasing her culinary talent at Monkey Bar outlets in Delhi and Kolkata by way of the special “pujor thaalas” (veg, chicken and fish) this season. There is also Armenian-Bengali restaurant Lavaash By Saby which is putting one “Puja special dish” every day on its menu through the nine days of the Navratras. Then, in Bengaluru and Delhi, Commeat, a collective of home cooks, has announced home-dining experiences where you can book yourself a place in the homes of passionate cooks and foodies Rajyasree Sen (DelhiNCR) and Varnika Ghosh (Bengaluru) who will cook up bhuri bhojs (literally, delightful and complete feasts). There is also Mumbai-based home cook Gitika Saikia, known for her Assamese pop-ups, who is offering a medley of Bengali and Nepali Durga Puja dishes this season — for home delivery/takeaway.

Clearly, Durga Puja fare is going mainstream. This, however, is just part of a larger trend across India. In the last few years, there has been a huge resurgence of interest in regional and community foods, prompted by the incessant sharing of pictures on Instagram. This phenomenon has converged with the evolving tastes of a millennial audience that wants a taste of the new and the untried instead of the familiar. Even in cities such as Delhi, hith- erto regarded as conservative foodwise, growing culinary cosmopolitanism is evident in the “buzz” surrounding festive eats. Last month, for instance, saw unprecedented frenzy over the Onam Sadya — though few Delhi “foodies” really knew about the meal or the rituals surrounding it prior to what may have been their first tryst with a banana leaf. “Thanks to social media where people had been posting pictures of the sadya much before the festival, we were sold out for all three days when we served the sadya,” says Thomas Fenn, partner at Mahabelly, a Kerala food restaurant in Delhi. Two years ago, when the restaurant first opened, Fenn had served the sadya, primarily as a way of getting through to Delhi’s Malayali community. Last year, he found, interest growing even among other diners. This year, the response was phenomenal with the restaurant serving 1,200 sadya meals (of 22-25 dishes) over three days. Even, at restaurants such as Sanadige, Delhi, which neither do exclusively Kerala fare nor were in fact promoting the sadya, there was unprecedented demand and chefs had to cook special festive meals. This, in a city where “south Indian” till very recently only meant “crisp dosas”!

The partaking of a culture through its food has been getting popular all over the world. In India too, cities such as Lucknow, Hyderabad and older parts of Delhi and Mumbai have been seeing “gastrotourists” during occasions such as Ramzan. It’s this phenomenon that is extending to other festivals and into other spaces too.

“This festive surge is due to the whole rise of the home cooks,” points out Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal, writer and consultant. Indeed, home cooks in India have never been in more demand. Earlier, enterprising ones started small caterings or were roped in for hotel promotions; now, entrepreneurial opportunities are too many to count.

One of the most interesting recent food trends has been the opening up of homes to outsiders for meals, where the hosts/cooks explain cultural nuances too. Unique festive feasts find a larger number of takers. Writer Sadia Dehlvi’s elaborate dastarkhwans at her Nizamuddin home during Eid are always heavily booked, says the Commeat team.

Writer and home cook Plavaneeta Borah, who organises Assamese pop-ups, says she is planning one for Diwali and Kongali Bihu (which coincide being harvest festivals). From pani pitha (pancakes) to jaluk diya mangsho (Assamese pepper mutton), til diya murgi (chicken cooked with black sesame seeds), gahori (pork with bamboo shoots and bhoot jolokia), patot diya maas ( fish wrapped in banana leaves) and more, this festive feast will be just one more reason to celebrate.

Spoke to Dawood after Bhendi Bazar bldg collapse: Kaskar

Fugitive Don Recently Made Four Calls, Claims Brother

Investigators probing the extortion ring run by Iqbal Kaskar have revealed that he spoke to his fugitive gangster brother Dawood Ibrahim four times in the recent past, using ‘burner phones’ to avoid leaving any traces for intelligence agencies.

It is also learnt that the last conversation between the two was reportedly after the dilapidated Husaini Building collapsed next to Kaskar’s house in Bhendi Bazaar. However, police are yet to verify the claims made by Kaskar.

Investigators grilling Kaskar are understood to have told the sleuths that he spoke to Dawood over phone and that he made the calls using burner phones and SIM boxes. Burner phones are prepaid phones used for a particular purpose, disposed of once that purpose is over. SIM boxes enable a caller to hide their identity and the number they are calling from.

“It is suspected that they used SIM boxes to route calls through Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) which confuses the monitoring, security or intelligence agencies, keeping a tab on underworld elements. All this is again subjected to verification and a thorough probe connecting the dots is underway,” said a senior officer.

Police are also verifying intelligence reports that close relatives of Dawood Ibrahim based in Pakistan travel to and fro to Dubai without stamping their passports to avoid being tracked by intelligence agencies. “Verification of this information is on and it is too premature to say anything about this,” said the senior police officer.

On the other hand, elaborating more on Dawood’s address, a senior officer said that Kaskar has allegedly told them that Dawood as well as Anees and other close family members stay in palatial mansions located behind the Abdul Qazi Dargah in Karachi, near the Clifton area in Karachi, Pakistan.

“He has told us that there are other two-three mansions in the same locality which are used for living by some aides of the D-Gang,” said the senior cop.

Police have also got the relevant documents of the flat where Kaskar’s arrested co-accused Mumtaz was staying and which was extorted from the builder. “Verification is underway and soon other details will come to the fore to make a watertight case,” said a senior officer.

Sources said a few more arrests are likely to be made soon, but police refused to comment on the same. Dawood is not involved in the Thane extortion racket

Germany goes to poll today, Merkel poised to win Booze, Porsches and secrets: Germany’s candidates get real

Far-Right Party Likely To Enter House For First Time Since WWII

Berlin/Greifswald: German chancellor Angela Merkel, poised to win a fourth term in Sunday’s election, urged supporters on Saturday to keep fighting for votes with a third of the electorate still undecided. Merkel’s call was echoed by her centre-left challenger Martin Schulz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), now in an unwieldy “grand coalition” with her conservatives.

Merkel is widely expected to cruise to re-election with the SPD trailing by double digits but the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could emerge as the third largest party, complicating the make-up of her next coalition. A new INSA poll showed declining support for both Merkel’s conservatives, who dropped two percentage points to 34%, and the SPD, down one point to 21%. The anti-immigrant AfD, meanwhile, gained two percentage points to 13%, which would make it the first far-right party to enter parliament since the end of World War II.

Merkel, speaking to supporters in Berlin before heading to her home constituency in northern Germany, called for a final push to drum up votes by focusing on conservatives’ commitment to support ➤ If Angela Merkel wins, she will be on track to rival Helmut Kohl’s record of 16 years as chancellor ➤ For first time since 1950s, record seven parties expected to enter the German parliament ➤ Hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could become the third-strongest party for families, a pledge to avoid tax increases and a focus on increasing security in Germany.

The Christian Democratic leader also lauded the role of the European Union in providing stability in “a troubled world”. “We want to boost your motivation so that we can still reach many, many people today. Many are still undecided,” said Merkel. First elected in 2005, Merkel remains popular in Germany but has regularly faced jeers from left- and rightwing demonstrators during her speeches across Germany — a decided change from her last campaign in 2013.

At a campaign rally in Munich on Friday, Merkel defen- ➤ Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union may be looking at their lowest score of 35.1% ➤ Since Merkel took power in 2005, drinkers at Oktoberfest have downed 76.7 million litres of beer at the festival — equivalent of around 30 Olympicsized swimming pools ded her 2015 decision to admit about one million asylum seekers as a humanitarian necessity but pledged to prevent a repeat of that crisis by doing more to fund programmes in migrants’ home countries to dissuade people from emigrating.

Several polls estimate that the AfD will win 10% to even 15% of the vote. Far-right parties have held seats in state legislatures and municipal councils in Germany for decades. But since the federal Parliament of West Germany was established in 1949 after the Nazi defeat in World War II, no party to the right of the Christian Democratic Union has surpassed the 5% threshold necessa- ry to win seats there.

Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere, in an interview, criticised the AfD as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and said thedomestic intelligence agency was studying “whether rightwing extremists are exerting influence on the party”. The AfD was founded in 2013 with the original goal of opposing large bailouts of financially strapped euro zone countries but from 2015 shifted its focus to immigration. The party, which has already won seats in 13 of 16 state legislatures, has promised to re-energise debate in the federal parliament after four years of what it calls Merkel’s “boring” rule.

Germany’s 2017 election campaign may have been widely panned as a snoozefest. But a closer look reveals that the candidates themselves are anything but dull. Here’s a rundown of some of the interesting tidbits about the main players.

Martin Schulz | Social Democratic Party

Life almost took a very different turn for Merkel’s main challenger, Martin Schulz of the Social Democrats. After quitting high school without a diploma, he pinned his hopes on becoming a professional football player. But a knee injury crushed that dream, and a despondent Schulz turned to alcohol. He credits his brother with getting him back on the right track. Not long after, he became the youngest-ever mayor (at 31) in 1986 of his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia. His career eventually took him to Brussels, where he went on to become the head of the European Parliament (2012-1017). Along the way, he taught himself five languages.

Alice Weidel | Alternative for Germany

Alice Weidel is an openly gay, former Goldman Sachs banker who is raising two children with her Sri Lankanborn partner. She’s also one of the leading candidates for the rightwing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which prides itself on its antiimmigration and anti-elite leanings. Acknowledging the apparent paradox, Weidel said: “If we’re being honest, of course the AfD doesn’t seem like the first port of call when it comes to gay rights.” But she has also railed against the “Muslim gangs” who she says make it difficult for gay couples to hold hands in the street.

Christian Lindner | Free Democrats Party

The pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) have plastered black-and-white close-ups of their leader Christian Lindner’s face on campaign posters across the country. Not bad for a man who was overweight as a teenager. Determined to fight the flab, Lindner says he shed 30 kilogrammes after taking up jogging and going on a strict diet. Showing the same tenacity elsewhere in life, he started his own ad agency at the age of 17. At 19, he bought his first Porsche. “I shouldn't have done that,” he says now. After his studies, he launched a software business that went under in the dotcom bubble of the early 2000s.

Sahra Wagenknecht | Die Linke party

The leader of the far-left Die Linke party Sahra Wagenknecht was born behind the Iron Curtain in communist East Germany in 1969, to a German mother and an Iranian father. When she was just three years old, her student father went on a trip to his home country and was never heard from again. His fate remains a mystery. She is one half of a political power couple with former Social Democrat heavyweight Oskar Lafontaine, a one-time finance minister who later defected to Die Linke.

Cem Ozdemir | Greens party

Co-leader of the Greens party is of Turkish origin. Last year, he attracted the wrath of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for backing a parliamentary resolution that recognised the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians as genocide. Such was the outrage that Ozdemir needed police protection. In 2014, at the height of the “ice bucket” challenge craze, Ozdemir was filmed dousing himself in freezing water while standing next to a marijuana plant. He later said he had wanted to make “a gentle political statement” to decriminalise cannabis.